ON THEIR RADAR: Big-league scouts are flocking to see Portsmouth’s Westmoreland

PORTSMOUTH ó He hasnít lost his focus even though every time he pitches there are a bunch of guys standing behind the backstop with radar guns.He hasnít...

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Posted Mar. 6, 2013 @ 1:31 pm

This story was originally published on May 4, 2008

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PORTSMOUTH ó He hasnít lost his focus even though every time he pitches there are a bunch of guys standing behind the backstop with radar guns.

He hasnít been fazed by the fact that when he runs from home plate to first base the scouts are standing along the right-field line with stopwatches.

He didnít even get nervous when Boston Red Sox vice president of player personnel Ben Cherington came up to him after one of his games and asked if he would take some postgame batting practice using a wooden bat.

But when he heard that Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein might come to one of his games this season, Portsmouth Highís Ryan Westmoreland admits he was a little excited.

"Thatís interesting. Itís awesome," Westmoreland said about his coach having been told by a Red Sox scout that Epstein hopes to see a Portsmouth game this spring.

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HEíS THE All-American boy. The National Honor Society member who was last yearís Rhode Island High School Baseball Player of the Year; an All-State soccer player who last winter scored 18 points per game for the Portsmouth High boys basketball team.

But it isnít just that Westmoreland does it all. Itís the way he does it, especially on the baseball field, that has professional scouts flocking to Rhode Island and virtually every major-league team asking Westmoreland to fill out six- and seven-page personality questionnaires.

Heís 6-foot-2, about 195 pounds, and can run from home plate to first base in four seconds flat.

Heís an outfielder/pitcher and last week he pitched a perfect game, striking out 19 of the 21 batters he faced in the seven-inning game. So far this season, he has recorded 79 strikeouts in only 34 innings.

As impressive as those pitching stats are, however, the pro scouts probably are more interested in his potential as an everyday player.

He throws right but bats left. His swing is smooth and quick. He hits baseballs out of the park, but also hits for average ĖĖ .587 so far this spring against Rhode Island high school competition. In 12 Interscholastic League games this season he has seven doubles, two triples, two home runs and has stolen 12 bases in 12 attempts.

The Natural in Portsmouth red and blue.

"I love both [pitching and hitting], but wherever I go I will probably be an outfielder because I think they like my [foot] speed," said Westmoreland. "There are a lot of guys who throw 88-92 [mph], but my speed is something everyone doesnít have."

It isnít that he hadnít been in the spotlight before this spring. Youíre not named the Rhode Island Schoolboy Athlete of the Year, as Westmoreland was in 2007, without seeing your name in print a few times.

But this spring, the attention has been elevated to a new level.

He spent the past two summers playing for the New England Roughnecks, an age-group amateur baseball team out of Massachusetts. The Roughnecks play in several national summer tournaments, so Westmoreland was seen by baseball people all over the country. By the end of last summer, he had scholarship offers from several Division I colleges. Last fall, he signed a national letter of intent with Vanderbilt University.

Once he signed the letter, he figured his career-making decisions were over for the immediate future. He would play for Portsmouth this spring with the hopes of helping the Patriots win their first Division I state title, then head to Vanderbilt in the fall.

Sure he knew there was a major-league amateur draft in early June, but nobody had been talking about him being the type of early-round draft choice who would be offered the bonus-signing money that would tempt him to forgo a college baseball career.

After all, Vanderbilt is the dream situation for a kid who takes as much pride in his grade-point average as his batting average. Itís a school with a great academic reputation that produces major-league draft choices. Last spring, two of the top eight selections in the major-league draft were from Vanderbilt, including pitcher David Price, the No. 1 overall selection.

In fact, when the Vanderbilt coaching staff sent a copy of their weight-training program after he had signed the letter of intent, Westmoreland began working out diligently this winter, even while he was playing high school basketball.

When the pro scouts started coming to Portsmouth games last month, they saw an even bigger and stronger player than the one who had impressed the college coaches last summer.

"He put on about 15 pounds from last fall to this spring," said his father, Ron Westmoreland. "He has been really diligent about working out."

The kid from Portsmouth had gone from being on the major-league radar screen to being a prime target.

It took about two weeks for any scouts to make a Portsmouth baseball game this season, but once they started coming it didnít take long for the radar guns and stopwatches to multiply.

"It definitely seems to have elevated" Westmoreland said of the attention from the pro ranks. "It went from there being one, maybe two guys, at the games to there being a bunch of them."

First it was the local scouts, then some chief area scouts followed by the cross-checkers. Then on April 24, Cherington was in Portsmouth, along with Red Sox area scout Ray Fagnant, when the Patriots hosted Cumberland.

When the game was finished, they asked Westmoreland if he would take some on-field batting practice using a wooden bat. Fagnant told Portsmouth coach Dave Ulmschneider that Epstein was sorry he couldnít be there that day, but hoped to see a game sometime this season.

Itís all attention that Westmoreland never expected this spring.

"I didnít really look at that [the draft] at all because I didnít think I would get drafted high," said Westmoreland, who is a member of the Foreign Language Honor Society as well as the National Honor Society. "I didnít know what the interest level would be so I just figured, if any, I would get drafted really late and go to Vanderbilt."

"You always thought he might get drafted, but until about a month ago I donít think anybody was thinking any higher than between the fourth and sixth rounds," said Ulmschneider. "Now with all this attention he is getting you donít know. It could be higher."

Yes, it could be, which means Westmoreland might have to make some life-altering decisions only a month after his 18th birthday.

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ITíS NOT THAT he hasnít been dreaming about some day playing professional baseball, even since he and six of his teammates on this yearís Portsmouth High baseball team were members of the Portsmouth Little League team that won the Rhode Island state Little League championship in 2002.

"I played three or four sports growing up, but my whole life baseball is the thing I love to do the most," said Westmoreland. "Itís everything about it, the competition, the energy baseball has. I just love everything, itís nothing specific."

But for a teenager like Westmoreland, who believes a college campus is a place where his baseball game can mature along with his intellect, the signing bonus money that goes with a sixth- or seventh- round draft selection isnít worth giving up a college scholarship to become a teenage pro baseball player.

The money that goes to first- and second-round selections, even some third-round picks, however, can provide a good start to a financially secure life. For example, Jarrod Parker, an 18-year-old pitcher out of Norwell High in Bluffton, Ind., was the ninth player selection in the first round of the draft. He received a reported $2.1-million signing bonus from the Arizona Diamondbacks. The second-and third-round money is proportionally lower, but itís still the type of cash that can make you think about an early start to a pro career.

And if a player knows he wants to go to college in the offseason, Major League Baseball has a college scholarship plan in which a team puts aside money strictly for college expenses, as part of the contact.

But Major League Baseball needs to know that its early-round draftees will be willing to begin a pro career immediately, because the drafting team has only until Aug. 15 to sign a player. Once a drafted high school player enters a four-year college, the major-league team loses his rights and the player cannot be drafted again until the completion of his junior year or until he turns 21.

Westmoreland, and his parents, have been listening and filling out all the questionnaires. No team has said where they see him in the draft lineup and he says heís leaving his options open.

"They try to determine your signability," said Westmoreland. "I just say Vanderbilt is an incredible opportunity and itís going to take a lot to pass up a school like Vanderbilt. Right now, the plan is to go to Vanderbilt, but itís definitely interesting and exciting time for me to know the assistant GM [Cherington] is at one of your games.

"Itís exciting, but at the same time you canít let that bother you or affect your play. You just have to go out there and play. You have to block everything else out and focus on the goal of winning a high school state championship," said Westmoreland.

"Iím amazed at how well he is handling all this attention," said Mike Lunney, the veteran Portsmouth high athletic director who also was Westmorelandís basketball coach. "I was talking to him the other day and he said all he is thinking about his team winning the state championship."